


If I Drown I'll Remember Your Eyes in Fire

by victoriousscarf



Series: Beware of Heroes [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Dune Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 16:24:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3256550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/pseuds/victoriousscarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The small moments are the ones that start the largest wars, and this dark night should have been like any other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Drown I'll Remember Your Eyes in Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to "Harvey Two-Face" from the Dark Knight soundtrack and somehow this is what happened.

“Has your father gone mad?” Fingon greeted Maedhros, from where he had been forcing his way through the crowd to stand at his friend’s side.

Maedhros’ eyes flickered over and then back to his father, Fëanor standing on top of a toppled pillar, an old building from the heydays of the human empire, when they had used their machines to reach across the stars and force nature to submit to them.

When their machines rebelled and took humanity’s ruling crown, this building which had once been beautiful, was left in ruins and preserved that way, so humanity would never forget who its new masters were now.

Yet they should have known better then to believe it would lie empty forever under their rule. Now Fëanor stood on top of the ruins, holding his hands up to address the humans stupid enough to come to his call.

“Even gathering like this is mad,” Fingon said, beside him, and yet Maedhros dimly recognized Fingon’s own father and brothers in the crowd, Galadriel standing out from the others with her pale golden hair and deep eyes. She stood in the front of the crowd, chin barely tilted back to consider Fëanor.

“Too long,” Fëanor thundered. “Have we waited, have we toiled, while some of our own kind is taken in by the machines, as trophies for their homes. These pampered few, who have forgotten what it is like for the rest of us, who sit at the knee of the machine and reassure them they are right, will those not come forward now to my cause too?”

Maedhros felt Fingon tense beside him, and he did not have to look over to see Fingon’s sweeping dark hair, gold beads jingling together as he moved, or to know how much finer the clothes he wore was. “He does not mean it,” he whispered and Fingon turned to stare at him.

“Yes he does,” he said, his own father standing white lipped as he stared at Fëanor. “He always does. He is trying to declare open revolution.”

Maedhros started at Fingon, letting the sound of his father’s voice wash over him, the stirring and the rumble of the gathered humans. Soon, the machines would realize where they all were, and assume correctly exactly who was standing from the ruins and yelling.

“Would you reject open revolution?” he asked, their conversation almost swallowed by the crowd’s restless shifting, and Fëanor’s voice rising ever in pitch.

“No,” Fingon said, and their eyes finally met. “No,” he repeated, and Maedhros could hear the same longing in Fingon’s voice as he often heard in his father’s, as he sometimes heard in Galadriel’s and rarely in Fingolfin’s. The quiet desperation and rage for a better life, for a different hope to pass down to the coming generations then simply humanity’s disgrace and defeat by their own creations.

“But this,” Fingon added, and his eyes were dark. “This is only madness.”

“Would you not stand with me, brothers?” Fëanor said suddenly, holding a hand down and reaching to Fingolfin, Finarfin standing behind his brother’s shoulder. For a long moment, Fingolfin stared at his half brother, before taking his hand.

“No,” Finarfin said quietly, stepping back instead.

“This is open revolution,” Fingon said again, shocked.

“Think of what the histories will make of it,” Maedhros replied, lost under the roar of the crowd. “Such a small moment.” Such a desperate one, he added to himself, because Fingolfin stood in rich clothes like his son, one of those favored few that were often the very subject of Fëanor’s angry rants, at the end of the day when the machines laughingly left the humans alone to fight among themselves. Fingon and Maedhros had often sat at the same table, watching their father’s fight across the way.

“Divide and conquer,” Fingon had whispered to him, holding a precious book in his lap and trying to teach Maedhros how to read, though his lips were pressed together and he looked at his father with such sorrow. “It has been the ruler’s strategy throughout time.”

Now, there were no more divisions because Fingolfin and Fëanor stood together and spoke of revolution, of an end to the machine’s rule, and especially Morgoth’s evil reign.

“Even if we cannot destroy them all,” Fëanor thundered. “We will take him away, we will weaken the very hearts of them and wrest back the beauties which we, humanity, created so long ago. We will take them back from his filthy grasp!”

“Come to me, my sons,” Fëanor added and Maedhros moved before he registered it.

“No,” Fingon said, reaching for his friend and Maedhros felt his fingers brush his sleeve, trying to hold him back and he went forward anyway. Later, he would realize Fingon trailed behind him, and stopped next to Galadriel, who would not look at her own father. But in that moment, all he could see was his own father, holding a hand down to him and his six other brothers.

“Swear,” Fëanor said and they did.

They swore then and there to support their father in anything, though Maglor’s eyes were dark pools that Maedhros could not read. They swore to press the revolution until they could no longer go forward, to fight until their death, and to reclaim everything that Morgoth had ever taken from them.

Later, he would remember the way Fingon had stared at him, gold laced in his elaborate braids and fear in his eyes in the flickering lights of the long abandoned ruin. He would remember it later, like a starving man would remember his last glass of water, or a drowning man remembered the last glimpse of sunlight through the ocean.

That night though, Fingon had only taken his hand and held on, when Maedhros finally let him.

“Together,” Fingon had said. “We’ll do this together.”

“Yes,” Maedhros had agreed, and he had meant it, though he would later prove his words a lie. “We have always done everything together.”

And Fingon stared at him like he was already drowning.


End file.
